Allographic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Pertaining to alternative representations of characters that maintain the same meaning despite varying visual forms
2. Relating to different graphical renditions of letters or symbols that convey identical sounds or meanings in a language
3. Describes characters or symbols that can be depicted in alternate written forms without changing their meaning or sound

Etymology: The word joins Greek "allos," meaning "other," and "graphein," meaning "to write." Put together, an allograph is one of several written shapes that count as the same letter or symbol. The double-storey and single-storey "a" are allographs of one letter, and so are the many handwritten variants of "g." "Allos" is related to Latin "alius," meaning "other," and that shared ancestry explains why "alias," from the Latin for "otherwise," follows the same pattern of meaning. The "-ic" ending is a common Greek-derived suffix that turns a noun into an adjective, so the term describes something relating to these variant forms.